The Pledge
by BiteMarks
Summary: Beth comes to a realisation, and makes Mick a promise. Set in the early days of their romance.


**A/N:** _This is the very first fanfic I ever wrote, just over a year ago. Up to that point, I had written nothing besides my signature for twenty years._

The Pledge

The door to the apartment swung open and Beth staggered in supporting Micks weight on her left shoulder, her left arm around his waist, her right resting on his chest to steady him. He looked like hell. There was a cut over his right eye and a long scratch across his throat. The worst of it though were the wounds on his back. His midnight blue dress shirt hung in tatters, and there was blood, a lot of it, soaked into the fabric of his shirt and the waistband of his jeans.

She walked Mick across his living room floor little by little with halting steps and just when she thought he'd be unable to walk any further, she reached out with her right hand, swinging one of his dining chairs around to face her.

"Sit down," she said gently, helping him to lower one leg then the other to the leather seat. "Backwards, Mick. I need your back exposed."

He swivelled his body to face the chair back, legs astride the seat, with shaky, silent compliance.

He really didn't look good. Right now, he was moving like the eighty-five year old man that he truly was. He was pale, so pale. He hadn't eaten in days, and the blood loss from his wounds was enormous. She could see the first tinges of yellow around his irises, but offered him no blood. She had a grim task to complete before she would even think about giving him the healing release of his liquid sustenance.

Mick closed his eyes, swaying a little in his seat.

"Don't go to sleep yet, Mick," she said, hoping that the urgency in her tone wouldn't frighten him. "Where's your.." She didn't quite know what to call it, seeing as vampires never needed first aid, "where do you keep your repair kit?"

She grimaced at her clumsy phrasing and let out a worried breath as Mick struggled to raise his arm, indicating the general vicinity of the kitchen.

With calm but purposeful movement, Beth walked to the kitchen and began to flip through his cupboards with systematic haste. She pulled out a large stainless steel bowl and placed it on the counter top. A small leather kit from under the sink followed, and she opened it, glanced through it, and placed it too on the countertop next to the bowl.

Craning her neck to see if Mick was still all right, she hurried to the stairs and along the corridor to his bathroom, leaving shortly after with two towels and a face washer.

Her skin prickled with alarm as she neared the bottom step. He was calling her name, but his voice was so weak and dry it was barely audible.

"I.. need.. blood.. Beth."

Increasing her pace, she was beside him at the dining room table in an instant, placing the towels near his right arm. She leaned over his shoulder, keeping her voice low, she said, "I know, Mick. I can't give you any yet. You'll heal too fast and I need to get these bullets out while I can still see them." She hoped he would understand.

His nod of assent looked painful.

Beth walked back to the kitchen and filled the bowl with warm water. She carried both it and the repair kit back to the dining table and arranged them carefully next to the towels.

For the first time Beth allowed herself to truly look at the damage he'd sustained. Blood soaked shreds of fabric clung to his back, and although she could see some small sections of clear, pale skin, most of his back was obscured by dark, dried blood.

"I'm going to have to get this shirt off. I'll be as gentle as I can."

She took a steadying breath and grasped what remained of the bottom edges of his shirt, tearing it section by section up to his collar. Underneath, ridges of pale skin surrounded by a wider rim of reddened skin circled more than a dozen neat bullet holes. Large swathes of dried blood remained where obvious heavy bleeding had occurred.

_God, Mick!_

Her stomach turned over, and the queasy sensation that had been politely knocking in the pit of her stomach reared up and threatened to overwhelm her.

_Stay cool, Beth. You can't afford to lose it._

Mick draped his arms around the top of the chair and allowed his head to sink down wearily onto his forearms.

Beth draped one of his large soft bath towels around his waist, and then in a voice she hoped sounded as confident as a seasoned emergency department nurse said, "I'm going to remove the bullets now."

She removed the pliers from his kit and placed her left hand on the cool skin of his shoulder. His muscles felt like bedrock and she hoped she wouldn't have to probe past too much of that to get to where the cartridges were lodged.

'I'm sorry', she whispered in an advance apology, and with a deep breath, inserted the nose of the pliers into the first wound.

A brief guttural exhalation forced itself out between Mick's clenched teeth, and his eyes flared ice blue for a moment before fading to a deeper dirty yellow.

She gave his shoulder a comforting squeeze and pushed the pliers in a little further. She could feel the hard metal of the base of the bullet and with a dexterity she didn't know she had, she manoeuvred the jaws of the pliers around the casing and extracted it gingerly.

Mick sighed, and his head sank deeper onto his forearms. Again and again, Beth pressed the pliers into each bullet hole, her face frowning with intense concentration. Even though she was trying to be gentle, she knew she was hurting him and her heart ached. Only the occasional small groan escaped Mick's rigid control during each painful probe, and she was grateful that he was so miserly with his pain.

Finally the last shell thudded onto the wooden tabletop. Beth took a huge breath, her hand shaking as she rinsed the pliers and put them away.

"All done," she whispered.

He didn't move or make a sound.

A rising tide of hysteria threatened to overwhelm her, but she kept her voice low and steady, speaking to him in simple sentences as if he were an ailing child.

"I'm going to get you some blood now."

Trying to keep the worry out of her mind, she prepared a glass from his secret stash, placing it into his left hand and curling his fingers around it with hers.

"Here. Drink this."

With an effort he raised his head, his eyes the colour of old gold.

"Oh, Mick."

She took his face in her hands and held his chin, raising the glass and tipping the contents to his lips. His fangs were fully extended, and afterward, Beth wondered at her total disregard of his vampiric state.

He was her friend, he needed her help. That was all.

When he finished, Beth poured him another, then another. She stroked his cheek.

"Feeling better?" She asked, with the hint of an upturned smile.

He looked deeply into her eyes, his expression unreadable, and nodded. Slowly his head fell back down onto his arms.

She stood there, looking at his bowed head for a second and then it hit her, and her heart filled full of awe and compassion.

He'd stepped in front of the gunman to shield her, of course. He'd saved her many times now, and never once had she thought of the consequences to him of doing so. She hadn't realised the physical costs for him; he'd said nothing. He was so selfless, so stoic. The depth of his devotion made her tremble. A tear fell from her eye and rolled down her cheek.

She picked up the face cloth, dipped it into the bowl of warm water and slowly began to wash the blood from his back. She gently circled each of the slowly fading bullet holes in turn, then returned the washer to the basin and wrung out the bloody liquid; the steady rhythm of the sluicing water soothing, becoming hypnotic in the hush of the silent apartment.

Time stood still as she applied the cloth to Mick's wounded back reverently, in a series of unhurried caresses. The delicate strokes of the washcloth along the length of his torso mimicked the gravity of a religious ritual; a handmaiden tending to her master; an act of worship.

Beth continued the leisurely cleansing of his back long after the last wound had faded and the last drop of blood that stained his perfect skin was gone. So engrossed was she, she didn't notice at first the subtle shift in his posture, the tiny tremors in his sides and shoulders. His chest began to move up and down in silent heaves and his shoulders shook more forcefully.

"Hey," she said gently, "Hey."

She stopped what she was doing and stepped around to face him. He looked away, his face ducking. The lightest of pressure from her fingertips on his chin turned his head and she tipped his face up to hers.

His eyes were closed, wishing himself away, his long black lashes wet and spiky, a trail of glistening tears running down his cheeks to his jaw line.

She held her breath, and his eyelids slowly rose, his soft dark eyes at last meeting hers.

"It's been so long, Beth… so long since anyone's touched me like this…taken care of me like this."

Silently, the tears coursed down his cheeks. He looked so sad; a lost little boy who knew his mother wasn't coming for him. Ever.

She stepped closer, pressing his face against her side, stroking his hair, and suddenly his arms were around her waist, his face pressed deeper into the comfort of her warm belly. Huge, noiseless sobs heaved against his ribs painfully.

Her heart swelled with pity and carefully disengaging his arms, she dropped and knelt at his side, and as their gazes locked, she saw veiled deep within his beautiful eyes a vision of night after lonely night, existence with no hope of warmth or companionship or joy, spinning on into infinity.

For a split second she experienced such a searing pang of loneliness and regret, her throat locked tight and she couldn't breathe. Then she gasped, and her kind blue eyes filled with burning tears.

She touched her forehead to his in mute consolation, her palms resting lightly on the sides of his face, her thumbs tracing soft circles on his cheeks.

Slowly, so slowly, she leaned in toward him and kissed the tears from each of his lashes. She pressed her lips tenderly along the wet contours of his face, tracing the route of his tears, each one an itinerary of his sorrow. Her tears too were now falling onto his face, paralleling then mingling with his like salty tributaries flowing together in a confluence of compassion and longing.

The ragged pattern of his breath against her hair told her he was still weeping. She pulled her head back and searched his face, her shining eyes riveted to his.

"You'll never be alone again, Mick. I swear to you. You'll never be alone again."

Her body felt hot, it was scorching and she couldn't breathe, as if something had burst into existence within her in that moment that had grown too large too fast for her body to contain.

And in that instant she knew two things: she knew that she loved him; and she knew that _she,_ now, would take a bullet for _him_.


End file.
